Well as Core said, alot of the products were striving for simplicity in both form and function. Could it be that this resurgence of formal simplicity that's been making a push for a few years now is getting to it's peak and is now perceived as boring, "uninspired", etc.? Just a thought, any others?

I do tend to go towards a simple aesthetic and the designs themselves are not so much of an issue I guess as the concepts behind them. It seemed to me that there was less innovative and thought provoking awardees this year then in previous ones.

josht wrote:Well as Core said, alot of the products were striving for simplicity in both form and function. Could it be that this resurgence of formal simplicity that's been making a push for a few years now is getting to it's peak and is now perceived as boring, "uninspired", etc.? Just a thought, any others?

Dunno what is going on at the moment with design- Milan 07 was really uninspiring apart from a few stand-out pieces.
Back to basics is a good thing IMO -Serious Design is in danger of gimmickery

I see what you mean madhero. Alot of stuff looks evolutionary at best. However, not everything is simple. Look at the Stanley maxlife flashlight. Very busy.

It feels like I haven't seen something that hopped up and struck me as innovative since the ipod in 2001/2002.

Here is the thing that really irks me. The leaf light won an IDEA. That I can accept, but it won for design strategy! It's a product...not a strategy. If there was at least a whole product line of lighting, I could be convinced. Then again, that category only has two awards. Maybe they just couldn't find a better design for silver.

aaron wrote:We sumitted the olive buoy (www.olivebuoy.com) I wil have to think of what my strategy was....

Ummmmmmmm ok, dont see a real big market for them past the gift cute thing but hey I am a grump. In the day I used to drink toonies, and the last thing I wanted to worry about is losing a thingy for the olive/onion. Can you imagine the clutter with 3-6 of them things rolling around a table? If you use 2 or 3 olives do you dodge the float between olives and sips or just hold it in your hand?See to me thats all part of product strategy, and that strategy is vital to its sucess in the market place.

It works great with as many as four olives on it...but I was joking about the strategy. This piece was done to help us gain experience in negotiating with retail buyers for ourselves as it is such critical issue for many of our clients. It was really helpful although to date I think that Crate and Barrel has only sold 30,000 4 packs.
We broke even on the tooling investment.

If you want to test drive it send me your address and I will mail you some.

aaron wrote:It works great with as many as four olives on it...but I was joking about the strategy. This piece was done to help us gain experience in negotiating with retail buyers for ourselves as it is such critical issue for many of our clients. It was really helpful although to date I think that Crate and Barrel has only sold 30,000 4 packs.
We broke even on the tooling investment.

If you want to test drive it send me your address and I will mail you some.

Good job, any time you can break even on tooling and design your doing good. I have become very green of late LOL, I use a piece of pasta and let the suckers just recycle them internaly.

josht wrote:Could it be that this resurgence of formal simplicity that's been making a push for a few years now is getting to it's peak and is now perceived as boring, "uninspired", etc.? Just a thought, any others?

Yup, now you're talking. This strive for Rams-esque austerity has gone on long enough now, it's beginning to make us look bad. TIME TO MOVE ON GUYS. There are richer, more sophisticated styles out there that we should be adding to the pallet too; this minimalist/austere stuff is becoming as cliche as translucent (I-Mac) plastic.

Paul, How long have you felt that way? I've felt that way for about 6 months to a year. I figure that, like most designers, my taste must be at least 4 years ahead of the market. Therefore, the iAesthetic death watch should have 3 more years at least:/ How will we make it?